Today it was hard to discern between it being April 18th or a June 18th powder day. The deciding factor ended up being a couple of things. Green trees everywhere being crushed by the weight of a foot of new snow and the lack of lifts running. As nice as lifts are it certainly isn’t a limiting factor when it comes to skiing creamy SUMMER POW.
Line choices of the day included: Silver Fox through Rock Chute, Run-out of North Chute, Tram Cables, Run out of Cary’s Long, Great Scott, and Diagonal Chute.
While the resorts in the Southern Hemisphere are ramping up their operations and getting pounded on, folks in the Wasatch couldn’t resist getting one more day in before the desert heat of Salt Lake City returns.
In the mountains it can and often times does snow 12 months a year. However this storm was exceptional by June standards. It was the 3rd largest single day snowfall at the Alta, Utah weather station since 1905 when record keeping began, and quite honestly rivaled many of the winter storms we have gotten in the last 3 seasons!
While I had heard reports of phenomenal skiing up the road at Alta, I decided to stay away from the crowds that Alta is during the pre and post season and instead found utter seclusion at Snowbird. I did not see a soul all day. With the exception of one track in Great Scott from some poor soul who ventured over from Alta via West Baldy. (Sir or Ma’am, I feel sorry for your skis and glad you made it out of your poor line choice unscathed)
That’s right, I had all of Upper Cirque to myself. And by means of skinning, it would take a couple days to have marked off all the potential lines with tracks. With out the typical powder panic I was able to leisurely mark my territory with S’s and Z’s.
Somewhere in the realm of 5200-5500 I think. Where 2900 of that is getting to Hidden Peak to ski Silver Fox. The remaining runs vary from 4-700 apiece.
Kyler, how much upward vertical did you cover yesterday?